Hendrik
Thanks to the home visit program I had the unique chance to stay in a Japanese family for one whole day. Together with me had been Domenik, a research student who is also from Germany. Junichi Shigehara and his wife Teiko Poohshigehara picked us up at 1:00PM at the E2 and we went together to their home outside of Chofu by car.
They have a small but nice house with two floors and a very small flower garden in front, that is located in a nice region with a lot more green than in Tokio-city and many sport courts around. In the family are two boys, both around the age of 20 and a small dog as well.
Teiko-san's hobby is the art of calligraphy, so she gave us a demonstration of her work. Also we where allowed to try it ourself, beginning by making the ink. For that you use a flat stone bowl an a square formed block of dry ink. This you have to rub in the bowl together with water for quite a while, to create deep black ink. Because nether Domenik nor I where able to write Kanji, she wrote them for us first, so we just had to copy them. Still it was not easy and I have a idea now why you need so many years of practice to become that good.
We went shopping for the dinner together and after that we visited a public bathing house. This was my first time in japan to visit a place like this and it was a wonderful experience. There where many different kind of basins, two types of sauna (a dry and a wet one) as well as the famous basins outside. The water there was a milky white but Junichi-san told me this is actually not allowed to call itself a onsen, since there are certain minerals missing.
When we came back Teiko-san had already prepared the dinner, so we enjoined a wonderful meal together. I don't remember the name of it, but it was similar to one that I am familiar with called “fondue”. There is a pot with hot soup in hat you can put different vegetables and thin slices of meat. I tasted very good and reminded me of the food called “hot-pot” I ate a few days before.
I spend a interesting and exciting time with very nice people that day and are very thankful that I had been offered this opportunity. I hope to meet this people again someday.
Created: November 9, 2013 / Last modified:February 26, 2014
